My journey to a simpler life filled with riches

Archive for March, 2009

I’ve been off gallivanting around the country for the last month and now I’m finally home. I spent a wonderful week in Alaska visiting a good friend with my Husband and my Sister-in-Law. Afterwards, my friend and I spent a long weekend in New York City and then I was off to Washington, DC and Cape Canaveral, Florida for two week-long work conferences.

Something has intrinsically changed in me. I no longer get the huge thrill that travelling used to instill in me. Sure, it was great seeing new places and catching up with various friends that I haven’t seen for some time, but the whole time I felt like I was no longer being true to the new me. All those miles travelling via air, consuming convenient food and being exposed to all the waste that modern industrial society produces really bugged me. In fact, I was beyond being bugged by it. I physically cringed.

At some point in the last three months I’ve reached a tipping point. I had gone from someone who was casually downshifting their life to someone whose fundamental value system has taken a massive leap. Now I’m at a point where values I’ve held for much of my life are conflicting with new, strongly held beliefs. To be honest, it feels good. Scary, but good.

I’ve been a little quiet on the blog for this reason. I was having a hard enough time working through things in my head, let alone putting it coherently on the screen. I was reading so much, thinking so much and all at a frenetic pace. A month away let me digest some of it, and hopefully I can now begin writing down what I’m feeling and where to from here.

Yes….I’ve been in Alaska for the week. I’ve been without internet access until now so I wasn’t able to add any words to the picture I already had pre-posted. That will serve me right for assuming I could get easy access to internet anywhere.

I must say Alaska has been truly stunning. We’ve been hiking in snow, cross-country ski-ing and dog-sledding. We’ve seen an amazing array of wildlife which is a huge plus for me. We watched the start of the great Iditarod race and an ice-hockey game. We’ve also spent a good amount of time indoors catching up with my friend who lives up here.